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CASE XV
THE WHITE LADY OF ROWNAM AVENUE, NEAR STIRLING
Like most European
countries, Scotland claims its share of phantasms in the form of "White
Ladies.” According to Mr. Ingram, in his Haunted Houses and Family
Legends, the ruins of the mansion of Woodhouselee are haunted by a woman
in white, presumably (though, personally, I think otherwise) the ghost
of Lady Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh. This unfortunate lady, together with
her baby, was—during the temporary absence of her husband—stripped naked
and turned out of doors on a bitterly cold night, by a favourite of the
Regent Murray. As a result of this inhuman conduct the child died, and
its mother, with the corpse in her arms, was discovered in the morning
raving mad. Another instance of this particular form of apparition is to
be found in Sir Walter Scott’s “White Lady' of Avenel,” and there are
endless others, both in reality and fiction.
Some years ago, when I was putting up at a friend’s house in Edinburgh,
I was introduced to a man who had had several experiences with ghosts,
and had, therefore, been especially asked to meet me. After we had
talked together for some time, he related the following adventure which
had befallen him, in his childhood, in Rownam avenue (the seat of Sir E.
C.), near Stirling:—
I was always a lover of nature, he began, and my earliest reminiscences
are associated with solitary rambles through the fields, dells, and
copses surrounding my home. I lived within a stone’s-throw of the
property of old Sir E. C., who has long gone to rest—God bless his soul!
And I think it needs blessing, for if there was any truth in local
gossip (and it is said, I think truly, that “There is never any smoke
without fire” he had lived a very queer life. Indeed, he was held in
such universal awe and abhorrence that we used to fly at his approach,
and never spoke of him amongst ourselves saving in such terms as “Auld
dour crab,” or “The laird deil.”
Rownam Manor House, where he lived, was a fine specimen of
sixteenth-century architecture, and had it been called a castle would
have merited the appellation far more than many of the buildings in
Scotland that bear that name. It was approached by a long avenue of
trees— gigantic elms, oaks, and beeches, that, uniting their branches
overhead in summertime, formed an effectual barrier to the sun’s rays.
This avenqe had an irresistible attraction for me. It literally swarmed
with rabbits and squirrels, and many are the times I have trespassed
there to watch them. I had a very secure hiding-place in the hollow of
an old oak, where I have often been secreted while Sir E. C. and his
keepers, without casting a glance in my direction, passed unsuspectingly
by, vowing all sorts of vengeance against trespassers.
Of course, I had to be very careful how I got there, for the grounds
were well patrolled, and Sir E. C. had sworn to prosecute anyone he
caught walking in them without his permission. Had Sir E. C. caught me,
I should, doubtless, have been treated with the utmost severity, since
he and my father were the most bitter opponents politically, and for
that reason, unreasonable though it be, never lost an opportunity of
insulting one another. My father, a strong Radical, was opposed to all
big landed proprietors, and consequently winked his eye at my
trespassings; but I think nothing would really have pleased him better
than to have seen me brought to book by Sir E. C., since in my defence
he would have had an opportunity of appealing to the passions of the
local people, who were all Radicals, and of incensing them still further
against the principles of feudalism.
But to continue. I had often heard it rumoured in the village that
Rownam avenue was haunted, and that the apparition was a lady in white,
and no other than Sir E. C.’s wife, whose death at a very early age had
been hastened, if not entirely accounted for, by her husband’s harsh
treatment. Whether Sir E. C. was really as black as he was painted I
have never been able to ascertain; the intense animosity with which we
all regarded him, made us believe anything ill of him, and we were quite
ready to attribute all the alleged hauntings in the neighbourhood to his
past misdeeds. I believe my family, with scarcely an exception, believed
in ghosts; anyhow, the subject of ghosts was so often discussed in my
hearing that I became possessed of an ungovernable curiosity to see one.
If only “The White Lady ” would appear in the daytime, I thought, I
should have no difficulty in satisfying this curiosity, but
unfortunately she did not appear till night—in fact, not until long
after boys of my age had been ruthlessly ordered off to bed. I did not
quite like the idea of stealing out of the house at dead of night and
going alone to see the ghost, so I suggested to my schoolfellow that he
should also break loose one night and accompany me to Rownam to see “The
White Lady.” It was, however, of no use. Much as he would have liked to
have seen a ghost in broad daylight, it was quite another matter at
night, to say nothing of running the risk of being caught trespassing by
that inveterate enemy, Sir E. C.
At length, finding that neither persuasion, bribery, nor taunts of
cowardice had any effect on my schoolfellow, who could not decide which
appearance would be the more appalling, for,—he assured me I should be
certain to encounter either one or the other —the White Lady, or the
Laird Deil,—I gave up all further effort to induce him to accompany me,
and made up my mind to go to Rownam avenue alone.
Biding my opportunity, and waiting till my father was safely out of the
way,—on a visit to Greenock, where some business transaction would
oblige him to remain for some days, — I climbed out of my bedroom
window, when I deemed the rest of the household to be sound asleep,
scudded swiftly across the fields, and, making short work of the lofty
wall that formed the southernmost boundary of the Rownam estates,
quickly made my way to the avenue. It was an ideal Sunday night in
August, and it seemed as if all nature participated in the Sabbath
abstraction from noise and work. Hardly a sound broke the exquisite
silence of the woods. At times, overcome with the delightful sensation
of freedom, I paused, and, raising my eyes to the starry heavens, drank
in huge draughts of the pure country air, tainted only with the sweet
smell of newly mown hay, and the scent of summer flowers. I became
intoxicated, delirious, and in transports of joy threw myself on the
soft mossy ground, and, baring my throat and chest, bathed myself in the
moonbeams’ kisses. Then, picking myself slowly up, I performed the
maddest capers, and, finally sobering down, continued my course. Every
now and again fancying I detected the stealthy footsteps of a keeper, I
hid behind a tree, where I remained till I was quite assured I had been
mistaken, and that no one was about. How long I dallied I do not know,
but it must have been fully one o’clock before I arrived at the
outskirts of the avenue, and, advancing eagerly, ensconced myself in my
favourite sanctuary, the hollow oak. All was hushed and motionless, and,
as I gazed into the gloom, I became conscious, for the first time in my
life, of a sensation of eeriness. The arched canopy of foliage overhead
was strongly suggestive of a funeral pall; not a glimmer of moonlight
penetrated through it; and all beneath seemed to me to be buried in the
silence and blackness of the grave.
The loneliness got on my nerves; at first I grew afraid, only afraid,
and then my fears turned into a panic, a wild, mad panic, consisting in
the one desire to get where there were human beings—creatures I knew and
understood. With this end in view I emerged from my retreat, and was
preparing to fly through the wood, when, from afar off, there suddenly
came the sound of a voice, the harsh, grating voice of a man. Convinced
this time that I had been discovered by a keeper, I jumped back into the
tree, and, swarming up the inside of the trunk, peeped cautiously out.
What I saw nearly made me jump out of my skin. Advancing along the
avenue was the thing I had always longed to see, and for which I had
risked so much : the mysterious, far-famed “Lady in White,”—a ghost, an
actual, bona fide ghost! How every nerve in my body thrilled with
excitement, and my heart thumped—till it seemed on the verge of bursting
through my ribs! “The Lady in White!” Why, it would be the talk of the
whole countryside! Some one had really — no hearsay evidence — seen the
notorious apparition at last. How all my schoolfellows would envy me,
and how bitterly they would chide themselves for being too cowardly to
accompany me! I looked at her closely, and noticed that she was entirely
luminous, emitting a strong phosphorescent glow like the glow of a
glow-worm, saving that it was in a perpetual state of motion. She wore a
quantity of white drapery swathed round her in a manner that perplexed
me sorely, until I suddenly realised with a creeping of my flesh that it
must be a winding-sheet, that burial accessary so often minutely
described to me by the son of the village undertaker. Though
interesting, I did not think it at all becoming, and would have
preferred to see any other style of garment. Streaming over her neck and
shoulders were thick masses of long, wavy, golden hair, which was
ruffled, but only slightly ruffled, by the gentle summer breeze. Her
face, though terrifying by reason of its unearthly pallor, was so
beautiful, that, had not some restraining influence compelled me to
remain in hiding, I would have descended from my perch to obtain a
nearer view of it. Indeed, I only once caught a glimpse of her full
face, for, with a persistence that was most annoying, she kept it turned
from me; but in that brief second the lustre of her long, blue eyes won
my very soul, and boy as I was I felt, like the hero in song, that I
would, for my bonnie ghost, in very deed, “lay me doon and dee.”
Her eyes are still firmly impressed on my memory; I shall never forget
them, any more than I shall forget the dainty curves of her full red
lips and the snowy whiteness of her perfect teeth. Nothing, I thought,
either on earth or in heaven could have been half so lovely, and I was
so enraptured that it was not until she was directly beneath me that I
perceived she was not alone, that walking by her side, with one arm
round her waist, his face and figure illuminated with the light from her
body, was Sir E. C. But how changed ! Gone were the deep black scowl,
the savage tightening of the jaws, and the intensely disagreeable
expression that had earned for him the nickname of “The laird deil,” and
in their stead I saw love — nothing but blind, infatuated,
soul-devouring love—love for which no words can find an adequate
description.
Throwing discretion to the wind—for my excitement and curiosity had
risen to the highest pitch—I now thrust more than half my body out of
the hole in the trunk. The next instant, with a cry of dismay, I pitched
head first on to the ground.
It would seem that boys, like cats, cannot in ordinary circumstances be
killed, and, instead of breaking my neck, I merely suffered that most
immaterial injury—immaterial, at least, in my case—a temporary disen do
wment of the senses. On regaining the few wits I could lay claim to, I
fully expected to find myself in the hands of the irate laird, who would
seize me by the scruff of the neck and belabour me to pieces.
Consequently, too frightened to move, I lay absolutely still with my
eyes shut. But as the minutesglided by and nothing happened, I picked
myself- up. All was quiet and pitch dark—not a vestige of the “Lady in
White”—not a vestige of Sir E. C.
It did not take me very long to get out of the wood and home. I ran all
the way, and as it was still early—far too early for any of the
household to be astir, I crept up to my bedroom unobserved. But not to
sleep, oh dear me, no! not to sleep, for the moment I blew the candle
out and got into bed, reaction set in, and I suffered agonies of fear!
When I went to school in the morning, my equilibrium restored, and,
bubbling over with excitement to tell the boys what had happened, I
received another shock— before I could ejaculate a word of my
'experiences, I was told—told with a roar and shout that almost broke
the drum of my ears, that “the auld laird deil” was dead ! His body had
been found stretched on the ground, a few feet from the hollow oak, in
the avenue shortly after sunrise. He had died from syncope, so the
doctor said, that had probably been caused by a shock—some severe mental
shock.
I did not tell my companions of my night’s adventure after all. My
eagerness to do so had departed when I heard of “the auld laird’s”
death. |
